


I've Got to Tell Her (I'm Loving Her Friends)

by thegoodthebadandthenerdy



Series: Femslash Feb 2019 [3]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Femslash February 2019, Fluff, Short & Sweet, Yoga, allison is a figure skater and renee is mysterious and funny, what more could you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-21 12:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17642753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodthebadandthenerdy/pseuds/thegoodthebadandthenerdy
Summary: The world is small, the day is long, and Allison J. Reynolds has no control over her traitorous heart. (But why would she want to?)Day Three: Inhale





	I've Got to Tell Her (I'm Loving Her Friends)

**Author's Note:**

> my other femslash feb tradition: allisonrenee
> 
> title from narcissist by no rome

Allison dropped her mat with a wet thwack, nudging it out with toes painted electric pink. She wasn't really sure why she was there, but like hell was that going to keep her from looking good while she did it.

Her new coach, a petite woman with a Welsh name that taunted her tastebuds every time she'd gone to pronounce it in the two and a half weeks since they'd been paired up, had told her the class was mandatory. Something about how she was going to "drive herself into the ground with stress," and it would "help to limber up anyway," blah, blah, blah. 

She'd wanted to roll her eyes, possibly storm out for a day before crawling back to her because who the hell was she to mke any comment about the state of her stress levels. Then she'd actually considered that train of thought, and realized that maybe some stress relief would do her good.

And thus, here she was, favorite athletic leggings tugged on by five fifteen, and body inside the yoga studio ten 'til. 

It was cute, a little place she'd passed more than once on her way to the smoothie place two storefronts down. The interior smelled softly of incense, with trickling water sounds playing from a Bluetooth speaker behind the receptionists desk. What a boring Spotify account it must be to manage, she thought - waterfalls and rainforests and repetitive guitar chords to lull you out of your sense of time.

The studio itself felt like a sauna at just the right temperature, the warmth clinging to her skin in a way that would give her that perfect #nofilter Instagram sheen, which at least meant her day wasn't a total bust. She had a monthly quota of posts she had to fulfill, and this would save her from having to waste her Sunday doing something mind-numbingly boring with a Cheshire grin on her face just to hit that mark.

The other students had filed in around her, though the vaguely familiar - in the way all Instagram MUAs and so-called influencers were familiar - faces at least had the decency to leave her alone in her back corner of the training room floor. She wasn't exactly sure on if this was a team sport or whatever, but she didn't exactly climb her way to gold in a singles sport by working well with others. 

That was actually why she'd been pulled from not one, but three on-ice partnerships. That and she mostly hated (the) boys (they'd paired her up with.) 

There was the too tall one who had such a drive for the sport that it was too much for even her; the completely apathetic, though still truly graceful one; and then of course his asshole of a twin that she'd considered tripping more than once. He'd been the final straw, had made too many comments under his breath only to cower beneath her startling gaze for her to put any effort into trying to vibe with him. 

She'd always thought that if they'd let her skate with Dan that she could've done something in a pairs event, but that had been shot down before she could ever get it out of her mouth, and by the time anyone would even listen to her, Dan was out of the game, shifting to her new home behind the scenes. 

Before she'd left the league, Dan had indulged her, though, had worked on a short routine with her that they skated in their free time. It had been everything Allison had been building herself to be since she was a little girl: deadly, beautiful, and forged in power. It had solidified for her that she was supposed to be on her own, because no man would ever be able to make her feel on the ice the way she'd felt with her best friend.

But skating solo wasn't so bad, gave her time to push and push and push herself to her razor's edge with the knowledge that the whole team was doing its best. Whole team being her and apparently her very obvious cry-for-help stress. 

Right, yoga. 

She exhaled through her nose, eyes casting around the room like she was sizing up junior league competition, which was to say drolly, with a little distaste. 

She spotted the instructor just through the doorway, had found her face and memorized it from their lacklustre Facebook page, chatting with the receptionist. She almost counted down to the end of their conversation, tired of being left alone with her thoughts in a level of heat that was going to lull her to a fitful sleep.

But she wasn't desperate, so she ducked her head back down, taking a worn nail down the seam of her pants to look like she at least had something to do. She was about to start scratching over the mesh panel down the side of her shin when a robin's egg blue mat unfurled out of the corner of her eye.

Her head jerked to the left, a sort of righteousness flaring in her chest, a dragon on its horde asking who _dared_ to intrude upon its carefully outlined parameters.

Smiling back at her was an impish girl, her short cut tugged back into a spiraling bun on top of her head. The stray pieces that didn't reach far enough cascaded over finely toned neck muscles, all manner of colors smashed together on them like she'd rolled the bleach blonde in some poor kids sidewalk chalk mural.

"This seat taken?" she asked as she sat down, setting about stretching out her sleek muscles in quick succession. 

"Apparently it is now,"Allison shot back, chapsticked lips pulling across her pin straight teeth.

"It's the last one left, but I can leave, if you'd like," the woman offered, reaching for her toes, shoulders rippling under the razorback of her tank top. Allison snapped her eyes back to that of the woman, drizzling sugar-sweetness into her voice when she replied, "No sense in missing out. I'm Allison."

"Renee," she replied leaning slightly forward, the thin pendant around her neck swaying back and forth. "You ever done yoga, Allison?"

"That obvious?" she asked, ducking her head to the side, the loose coils of hair she'd left undone from her messy bun falling in her eyes.

Renee grinned, smile like a whip, and reached out to flick at one of them with nails bitten down to bluntless. "Painfully," she teased, scarred knuckles tapping at Allison's cheekbone before she retreated her hands back to her own space.

"My coach requested I attend," she offered, though she didn't know why, but there was heat creeping along her jawline and flushing her collarbones, and she needed a distraction. "And this place comes highly recommended by my old teammate, so here I am, giving it a shot."

With a swift movement, blood in warm water, Renee snapped the joints from her neck to her lower back, the popped pressure releasing like fireworks shot to a heavenly night sky. Her eyes slid shut, but her lips continued. "Who's your teammate?"

This was a no-go for Allison, had been from the moment she realized that being recognized iin public wasn't all it was cracked up to be. And it was weirder, for someone at her status, because if you found one figure skating nut then it was like you were the holy grail they'd been looking for their whole life. But if they'd never watched it, only kept up in headlines or maybe saw you in an event at the Olympics, then conversation fell into a static place rife with tension and expectance. 

Allison Reynolds was a lot of things, but a show pony wasn't one of them.

So normally she'd shrug the question off, would cut a look to end the conversation in its entirety, turn it around in a manner that was probably considered bitchy by most. But she hadn't cared about being a bitch since she was fourteen - because if standing up for herself, not taking the spitting things splashed across sports segements and shitty gossip sites about her, if that meant she was a bitch then she was the Queen Fucking Bitch and she took no prisoners.

But there wasn't anything particularly coaxing about Renee's question, a kind of honesty spiriting its way through her irises. Allison couldn't help it, really, the wanting to keep things going.

"Dan Wilds," she said off-handedly, purposefully keeping her eyes trained on Renee, not daring to look farther than her nodding head.

"Ah, so you're Dan's Allison," she said with a chuckle, her tongue lashing against the roof of her mouth. "Makes sense now."

"I wouldn't say I'm _hers_ , Matt'd probably die, but yes, that's me, every terrible thing she's ever said about me is undoubtedly true."

Renee snorted, a sound that was neither elegant nor inelegant, just a simple fact that left her pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. "I think the worst I've ever heard is that your a beast on the ice with an iron will that scares all the baby chicks. And I personally find that to be a raving compliment."

Allison couldn't help but preen slightly, but if there was one thing she'd internalized after years in the eyes of the press, it was that she could be "self-centered." Usually they called it something much more derogatory, but still, she flipped the script, that familiar sensation of moving before the judges, desperately needing to be liked.

"And you know Dan from here?" she asked, working her hair from the rubberband in her hair to retie it without the strands framing her face.

Renee was kind enough not to point out the gesture, instead taking the question sweetly. "Yeah, and from the gym too. Only person I trust aside from Neil to spot me."

Three things happened in very, very quick succession.

1\. Allison was shot back to the conversation in which Dan had recommended the yoga studio. A conversation that had involved a lot of Dan trying to hide this _look._

2\. She then remembered every single conversation (of which there were exactly seven) in which Dan had tried to set Allison up with a "really cool girl" she "knew from the gym."

3\. And finally, she blurted out, "Oh, you're little Renee."

She had never wanted to smack herself across the face more than she did in that exact moment.

Renee, for her part, just laughed. It was a good laugh, really. One that had Allison sliding the scale back on how hard she was going to kill Dan next time she saw her. 

"Sounds like you've heard a lot of things about me."

"Uh, yeah, that you once made Matt cry, which is like, straight up Dan Wilds sacrilege, and yet you three are still great friends."

"Okay," Renee sputtered. "That was an accident, and I didn't break anything."

Allison levelled her with a droll look. "He was in a splint for a week."

"It was a _compression sleeve_ , his hit landed wrong, and he tweaked his wrist."

"On your alleged rock hard abs. All I'm saying is it sounds suspect. Are you part cyborg, Renee?" 

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she grinned as the instructor called class to order.

Allison really, really would.

+++

"So," Allison said as she rolled her mat back up, trying to sound off-handed and like she hadn't been thinking about her following question the entire class.

There had been more than one moment, when she wasn't holding a pose right, or when she went to tip off to the side, any moment that could be used to excuse it, when Renee would put her - _holy hell so strong_ \- hands on Allison, and it took everything in her to not lean helplessly into her touch. 

She'd like the chance to, though, to feel their slight roughness on the sides of her face, on her hips, or in her own palms. 

"Monday," Renee said as she tucked her own mat under her arm.

"What?"

"This was your first class, so you're not going to be able to move tomorrow. But if you want to go to dinner, I'm free Monday night."

Allison blinked once, twice, then, "Little presumptuous, don't you think?"

"Did I presume right, though, Allison?"

"Monday night it is."

**Author's Note:**

> lowkey i fell in LOVE w this verse and have like. ideas
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @wlwshehulk


End file.
